NOTE: FOR THE UPDATE FROM ROCKY’S OFFICE, BE SURE TO SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM.
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Okay, the Los Angeles City Council voted on whether to authorize $100,000 for City Controller Laura Chick to hire an attorney to defend herself in the lawsuit filed against her by City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, and the council said NO, as Laura Chick expected that they would.
[see backstory below]
The 11 to 1 vote was to tell both offices, that of Delgadillo and Chick, to “stand down” with their tit-for-tat lawsuit. (Wendy Greuel, who is running for city controller, was the sole YES vote.)
Chick said she had no freaking intention of standing down, (or words to that effect) that she wants this matter to be settled and that, at this point, the court is the only way to get a definitive decision as to whether or not she has the power to audit the programs of LA’s public officials. So, she’s going forward. Get used to it!
After the vote was taken, Chick went on to say that she was going to hire attorney Fredric Woocher on her own dime and then Woocher could, at a later date, sue the city to reimburse his fees.
(So if she’s hiring him with her own money then why would he be the one who…. ? Oh never mind.)
Naturally, before and after the vote, there was much in the way of grandstanding on the part of all concerned.
Bernard Parks, who is the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, was one of the strong NO votes who spoke against authorizing the $100,000.
“I’ve never seen the city of L.A. ever give an employee money to sue us,” Park said.
(Note to Bernie. Technically speaking, the money at issue would have been used to allow an employee to defend herself against a lawsuit from another city employee. Maybe you don’t want to fork over the bucks anyway, but let’s at least be clear on the issue.)
Wendy Greuel spoke in favor of the hundred grand in funding and noted, quite rightly, that the city attorney has a conflict of interest in the case.
“We have voted on numerous occasions in the Budget Committee and others to provide outside counsel when there is a conflict by the city attorney’s office,” she said, according to the City News Service. “The controller deserves the same type of representation in this, no matter what your opinion is on the position that has been taken.”
Point, Wendy.
On the other hand, the city is hurting for cash and spending big bucks on attorneys fees so city officials can wave lawsuits at each other is a bit….how to put it?…..vexing.
Meanwhile, essential nonprofits in Los Angeles are on the verge of going under, while equally essential city agencies are hideously underfunded. Any of the above could put that same money to much more satisfying and productive use than throwing it down the rat hole that this lawsuit constitutes.
The last people in this mess who need to be handed great gobs of public cash are the private attorneys who, if this suit goes forward, are (one way or the other) going to get it.
Bottom line: Rocky, let Laura do the goddamn audit. We understand you don’t like it. Okay, we see other agendas too. But transparency, transparency, transparency. Public accountability is a good thing. You know the mantra.
Just do it.
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UPDATE:
Nick Velasquez from the City Attorney’s Office just posted the following in the comments section, which I felt was moving up to the front page:
1. The City Attorney is not now using, and has not ever used, outside attorneys to sue the Controller. The matter is being handled in-house, by our own attorneys.
2. As is customarily done, the CAO’s office has assigned outside counsel from its CAO outside counsel conflicts panel to represent individual City employees targeted with subpoenas by the Controller. But for the action of the Controller, in subpoenaing City employees, there would be no money spent on outside Council.
3. With regard to oversight of this office, the Controller has conducted more than 20 financial audits of this office over the past 8 years, and we have passed each one with flying colors. Any suggestion that there is no oversight of this office or accounting of its spending is totally false. It is an effort to confuse the issue and the voters.
The Charter allows the Controller to conduct financial audits of other elected officials. The Charter does not, however, allow the Controller to conduct performance audits of other elected officials – which would allow one elected official to evaluate the performance of another elected official. The Charter reform commission correctly saw that evaluation as the job of the voters. They also recognized the potential for political mischief-making by a politician charged with evaluating the performance of other politicians.
So, clearly, there’s more than one side to this question.
Interestingly, I know that the Controller is getting ready to audit the mayor’s gang program, one year in, to look at what Jeff Carr and company has done with the money, one year in. Is that a performance audit or a financial audit? I’ll get back to you with an answer.
Celeste,
The Daily Breeze, and the Daily News both got it wrong in the editorial you cite – which appeared in both papers.
Three points of note:
1. The City Attorney is not now using, and has not ever used, outside attorneys to sue the Controller. The matter is being handled in-house, by our own attorneys.
2. As is customarily done, the CAO’s office has assigned outside counsel from its CAO outside counsel conflicts panel to represent individual City employees targeted with subpoenas by the Controller. But for the action of the Controller, in subpoenaing City employees, there would be no money spent on outside Council.
3. With regard to oversight of this office, the Controller has conducted more than 20 financial audits of this office over the past 8 years, and we have passed each one with flying colors. Any suggestion that there is no oversight of this office or accounting of its spending is totally false. It is an effort to confuse the issue and the voters.
The Charter allows the Controller to conduct financial audits of other elected officials. The Charter does not, however, allow the Controller to conduct performance audits of other elected officials – which would allow one elected official to evaluate the performance of another elected official. The Charter reform commission correctly saw that evaluation as the job of the voters. They also recognized the potential for political mischief-making by a politician charged with evaluating the performance of other politicians.
That’s why the framers of our Charter chose not to grant the Controller the authority to conduct performance audits of other elected officials or their offices.
In your posting, you cite Erwin Chemerinsky’s view that the Controller does have this authority. But you fail to note that attorney and civic leader George Keiffer, the head of the appointed charter reform commission, Council Member Janice Hahn, who also served on the elected charter reform commission, as well as Council Members Huizar and Parks, agree with the City Attorney’s Office that the Controller lacks this authority. The transcripts, videotapes, and written reports generated during the charter reform process support the city attorney’s position on this issue as well.
The City Attorney welcomes a truly independent review of his workers’ comp attorneys, but not by an elected official with a political agenda and a history of playing politics with “official†audit results. Transparency is a given. The issue at hand is the credibility and motives of the reviewer, a politician.
Nick Velasquez
Director of Communications
Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office
Thanks Nick, I’ll post these corrections.
In general, a financial audit provides a balance sheet, income statement, and changes in fund balances statement–which shows what the agency has and how it got there over the last year–along with an opinion on the accuracy of those numbers.
An audit to form an opinion on the effectiveness of the agency in achieving those results would be a form of a special purpose perfomance audit that goes beyond the numbers.
In my view, a financial audit could be a proper role for the city controller, but a performance audit is an entirely different animal with different standards that would be better performed by a department specifically assigned and trained to do that.
But, frankly, I don’t think that either one can be issued with adequate assurance unless performed by outside, independent auditors.
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